Real estate agents and homebuilders are raising their eyebrows at the latest home inventory figures coming from Denver-area neighborhoods, as a shrinking supply of available homes continues to drive dramatic increases in prices.

“The market came back with a vengeance in the new year,” said Matt Leprino, spokesman for the Colorado Association of Realtors, which recently released its housing report that provides a statewide snapshot of inventory and prices at the end of February.

Those numbers show sharply rising prices for homes across the seven-county Denver metro area, where declining numbers of COVID-19 infections are mirrored by a dwindling supply of single-family homes and condos for sale.

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The year-over-year inventory in the Denver area was down 50%, just 1,486 single-family homes available for sale. Inventories of condos and townhomes saw an even sharper yearly decline, down 71.6%, with just 452 active listings available. Statewide, active single-family home listings at month’s end had dropped 41% from February 2021.

Leprino said those numbers are showing two surprising trends: The supply of homes coming onto the market has stayed nearly identical over recent years, but now those numbers are trending lower.

Meanwhile, Leprino adds, the ratio of list-price-to-sold price for single-family homes in the city of Denver hit an all-time high last month — 106.3% — reflecting how much more buyers are willing to bid over asking price.

In metro area counties, supplies of homes available to purchasers are dauntingly low, according to the report. In popular Southeast Aurora, spanning from Cherry Creek State Park to Aurora Reservoir, there were just 27 homes available to choose from in the 80016 zip code.

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Leprino says an abundance of buyers competing for a supply of homes that had declined 44% from a year earlier drove the median home price in the zip code to $795,000. As of March 8, he adds, there were only 187 active listings in Aurora, Colorado’s third largest city — single-family homes, condos and townhomes included.

On the opposite end of the metro area along the U.S. 36 Turnpike corridor, the picture was just as stark. In Broomfield County, an area largely built out during previous decades and where a border with Boulder County’s vast open space limits the availability of ground available to builders, there were 113 listings that arrived on the market in February — almost all under contract now, leaving just 15 active listings for buyers to choose from.

In the city and county of Denver, where prices were already some of the highest in the region, the median price for a single-family home jumped from $575,000 to $659,000, up $84,000 over the month. That 14.6% increase, says Leprino, was more than the Denver market experienced during all of 2016.

The median price, notes Leprino, is the typical price on the market, and a better gauge for buyers to weigh than the average price, which typically runs higher, driven up by a small number of homes in the multimillion-dollar price range. The average price in Denver County at month’s end, he adds, was over $810,000.

“If that continues, it’s plausible the Denver County could see an average price of over a million dollars by the end of this summer,” Leprino adds.

Agent Dawn Raymond, who sold just under $50 million in real estate last year, is seeing that effect now in her home Denver city market of Cherry Creek. There she is seeing remarkable cost-per-square-foot prices on premium luxury condominiums in the restaurant/shopping district — $1,350 a foot on one listing that sold in just two weeks.

“That’s a big number,” said Raymond. “Prices are climbing like crazy,” noting that she’s putting a second listing on the market in the same building at $8 million.

Snapshots of other markets around the state show similar effects, according to the report. In Fort Collins, the median price of homes for sale set a monthly record of $625,000. The market there had opened the month with an uptick of single-family listings, but the supply failed to keep pace as the numbers were quickly absorbed by buyers.

Year over year, single-family listings are down 35% in Fort Collins and surrounding Larimer County; and the drop in supply of townhomes and condos has been sharper still, down 44.6%. Single-family homes in the county are netting 102% of their list price, and multifamily homes are doing better still at 102.7% of list price. The average price in the county was $668,234, 27.5% higher than in February 2021.

In mountain resort markets, local buyers combined with those arriving from Denver and out-of-state buyers to quickly absorb inventory. In Steamboat Springs and surrounding Routt County, there were 41% fewer single-family homes and 51% fewer multifamily homes than at the end of February 2021. The median price for the month was up 15.1%, and there was a whopping 50.9% increase for condos and townhomes.

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“When prices for single family homes become unattainable you see rising prices on less expensive product,” Leprino said.

In Summit County, with Breckenridge and Keystone, the average price of a single-family home hit $2.56 million, with the total being driven higher by some exceptional luxury home prices, Leprino said. In nearby Lake County (Leadville), average single-family prices are up a staggering 81% year over year.

The Monthly Market Statistical Reports are assembled by Showing Time, based on data from Colorado Multiple Listing Services, according to the association. Metrics don’t include for-sale-by-owner transactions or all new home construction. It represents 29,000 Realtor members statewide, on the web at coloradorealtors.com.